IG Trade Analytics- what can you learn

[u0362565]

Hi all,

IG include trade analytics in their platform. For anyone not aware they give:

Return rate (expectancy), Win rate, profit/loss ratio

What good is this information? you know if you're making money if your account goes up on average. Can you use this information to help you improve your strategy in any way?

Thanks for the feedback.

 

 

[Caseynotes]

The key metric for me is the cumulative win rate plotted against the cumulative risk reward ratio over many trades.

So any plot above the red line in the chart below indicates a profitable strategy. eg a risk reward ratio of 2.5 (risk 1 to earn 2.5) needs a win rate of just 30% or over to be profitable.

Most important is that any changes you make to your system will show up very quickly shifting the plot on the chart so you can see without doubt if the change is beneficial or detrimental to results.

Without stats feedback you are always just guessing what works or not and inevitably just keep going round in circles. 

 

[u0362565]

Ok thanks, so I think what ig do is just give you the values, not plotted over time but it is cumulative over the total time you've been trading.. so in theory I could plot it myself if I noted down over each trade how the win rate and risk reward values changed.

[Caseynotes]

34 minutes ago, u0362565 said:

Ok thanks, so I think what ig do is just give you the values, not plotted over time but it is cumulative over the total time you've been trading.. so in theory I could plot it myself if I noted down over each trade how the win rate and risk reward values changed.

I don't have anything in the IG platform as use mt4 so not sure what they have. Sounds like the win rate is ok. For the risk reward ratio the initial stop is the risk and the profit or loss is the reward.

Many spreadsheets will calc that automatically when you enter the entry, exit and stop loss price and keep the running average.

In the snap below I only fill out enough data for each trade to supply the win rate and average RR.

That one is 'Trade JournalV2_1' (babypips site download)

or another is 'TradeJournal3.0' (earnforex website)

just google.

 

Maybe the IG one is enough for you but some like to keep a record of which strategy used or entry type, a snap of the entry and some comments for each trade.

 

 

 

[THT]

If you get your numbers then you can also then work out how many trades to have to make per year to achieve £x or xR or x% 

and then you can see if you can achieve that off the daily charts or if you have to go lower time frames to achieve etc

Trading is all about the maths 

I would for newbies or those losing recommend keeping stats and analysis as it helps you to understand things, I personally no longer do this and I stopped doing so back in 2012

The rules of trading are:

1 Lose money

2 Learn how NOT to lose money

3 Then you make money

4 There are no short cuts - If you're not losing money and have bypassed 1 & 2 the big one will get you its only a matter of time

Stats help you understand #2 & #3

 

[u0362565]

2 hours ago, Caseynotes said:

I don't have anything in the IG platform as use mt4 so not sure what they have. Sounds like the win rate is ok. For the risk reward ratio the initial stop is the risk and the profit or loss is the reward.

Many spreadsheets will calc that automatically when you enter the entry, exit and stop loss price and keep the running average.

In the snap below I only fill out enough data for each trade to supply the win rate and average RR.

That one is 'Trade JournalV2_1' (babypips site download)

or another is 'TradeJournal3.0' (earnforex website)

just google.

 

Maybe the IG one is enough for you but some like to keep a record of which strategy used or entry type, a snap of the entry and some comments for each trade.

 

 

 

Great thanks, didn't even consider spreadsheet templates would exist for this stuff

[u0362565]

1 hour ago, THT said:

If you get your numbers then you can also then work out how many trades to have to make per year to achieve £x or xR or x% 

and then you can see if you can achieve that off the daily charts or if you have to go lower time frames to achieve etc

Trading is all about the maths 

I would for newbies or those losing recommend keeping stats and analysis as it helps you to understand things, I personally no longer do this and I stopped doing so back in 2012

The rules of trading are:

1 Lose money

2 Learn how NOT to lose money

3 Then you make money

4 There are no short cuts - If you're not losing money and have bypassed 1 & 2 the big one will get you its only a matter of time

Stats help you understand #2 & #3

 

Yeah the list sounds familiar, your first comment is an interesting one as I feel like you can't say anything about what you think you can make over a given time. But if you can stick to a system and the market doesn't behave in ways you don't expect I guess with time you can given the data, although you only have the past to go on. But as we know history tends to repeat itself.. Thanks

[THT]

12 hours ago, u0362565 said:

Yeah the list sounds familiar, your first comment is an interesting one as I feel like you can't say anything about what you think you can make over a given time. But if you can stick to a system and the market doesn't behave in ways you don't expect I guess with time you can given the data, although you only have the past to go on. But as we know history tends to repeat itself.. Thanks

History does repeat, definitely

Your main job as a new trader is to work out as fast as possible what does and doesn't work and what the market typically does - My How to Win thread provides a massive shortcut to what works in the markets, I don't detail everything, but the basics are definitely there especially for trends.

Trouble is there's all these experts out there with flashy websites and youtube channels showing you perfect examples of trades to help them sell you something and then low and behold you try it and it doesn't quite seem to work

If the market behaves in a way you don't expect its either rogue price data or you're trading a method not suited to the cycle section that's unfolding in front of you

We can't control the cycle, the price action or the market, we just piggy back along until the ride is over

[syntek]

Be nice if we could go back to when the account was created instead of 2018.